It all makes one wonder what is going on in Sen. Clinton's mind at a time like that. Here is what I imagine...

Must...supress...delight that this has come-up just in time to save my campain. What to present? A touch of sadness and concern that there exist such people as Wright. Yes, perfect! Whatever you do, don't gloat or look pleased by it!

She handled it perfectly I think. It may not be enough to get her over the top, but it provides a ray of hope.

At this point though it is obvious that Wright, for the reason that he feels he has been betrayed even by Obama's relatively mild condemnation last month, is out to do anything he can to damage Obama's chances.

Which to me is a reason to vote for Obama-- he's the guy who Wright now dislikes the most.

If you look at Fox News right now, they've got a big clock up that says "Countdown To O'Reilly-Clinton." I wonder how long the countdown has been going on. They did a live interview with O'Reilly as part of the countdown. I think that's overdoing it a little.

They are building this up not just as a meeting of two starkly opposite political corners, but it strikes me that Fox is genuinely showing a frisson to have Hillary Clinton on.

Considering that Fox cemented their Top Cable News Dog reputation during the Clinton years, when they were at their most combative and effective, now they seem to be almost happy she's paying them a visit.

I already mentioned her expression, but I'd like to point out another over-the-top deconstruction about what she's wearing.

A hot flaming pink top.

Knowing the Clintons as well as we do, can we imagine she's trying to soften herself up, and go traditionally feminine for the more conservative Fox viewers?

This means that no one is actively creating that atmosphere. It just is.

But it's an atmosphere that was created deliberately by the very same people that support Obama -- Wright, Ayers, etc. Wright is probably right to argue that Obama does believe all this stuff, but also has to be a politician, and distance himself from those who say it outright.

But will he distance himself from his wife, who believes the same things? Will he denounce her, too?

It's funny you say that, because when she mentioned her father (when O'Reilly made the valid point that as a small business owner, he wasn't taxed to death and was allowed to raise himself by his own hard work), she sounded like the good, feisty Goldwater Girl she was in 1964.

BTW, "kudos" to O'Reilly for not getting in a cheap shot about that.

Very easily he could've thrown at her face that her dad was a Republican, and a die-hard Republican at that -- and didn't count on the government to give him a leg up.

I have to give it to her, she handled herself very well. She was gracious and looked great. Other than that, I still think she's a socialist.

Example: Her contention that she will call for a tax on oil companies' 'windfall profits'. Her reasoning essentially was: Well they don't deserve those kinds of profits because what have they invented anything?

Is that the litmus test now for corporations to justify high profits? Do shareholders (capitalist concept) give a shit as long as earnings are going up? So despite the fact that Exxon et al, explore, drill for oil, refine the oil, transport the oil all over the nation with the various grades mandated, they don't invent anything so they don't deserve the 'windfall profits.'

Maybe those windfall profits have something to do with increased demand. There have been at least 2 Congressional investigations for oil company collusion and they came up with nada.

Although drug companies do invent stuff all the time at great expense but she's going after those too.

O'Reilly seemed positively giddy about having the opportunity to have a back-and-forth with Hillary, and she did very well. She was cool, engaging, and she didn't back off from him. They both seemed to be enjoying the encounter, which makes for good television, and works to her benefit. This interview was a good move for her.

I haven't watched this, but what y'all are saying (I'm in North Carolina now, and it's handy to have a second person plural!) confirms something I've been thinking: that she has the most presidential demeanor of all three candidates. I also agree that dumping Bill would be a necessary (if not sufficient) condition of my supporting her. He's become really repellent.

Regretably I did not see HRC's interview. While I don't always agree with Garage Mahal's commentary, he is most certainly correct in his assessment about media bias toward Ms. Clinton. I listened to NPR this afternoon on a very long drive home.Of particular note was Adam Hochbergs (sp?) "hard hitting" interview of NC voter's reaction to Obama's outrage speech.

Hochberg entered the lion's den of a bookshop in Durham NC near an historically black college and interviewed the customers--who, suprisingly enough, felt that Mr. Obama did very well. In fact, they pretty near repeated all the talking points of the Obama campaign. And from this totally random and unbiased sample, NPR concluded there was no damage to the Obama campaign and all was well in Obama land. With expose journalism like this, we can all be enlightened. (for some inexplicable reason, they didnt discuss the recent polling data).

If that puff piece weren't bad enough now cut to a town in Indiana with a "checquered racist past." Again, surprisingly enough, Obama is still on the fast track for sainthood there.

No mention of the other democratic candidate --that would be Ms. Clinton--although there was a brief mention of President Clinton's visit there.

Is NPR in the Obama tank? go to NPR.org and listen to the ATC show and judge for yourself.

Garage: The fawning obamabots have done the impossible: they have actually made me sympathetic toward Ms. Clinton whom I still cannot abide but for whom I feel a bit of pity.

Profits schmofits. It's return on investment, not profits, that's the measure of interest, and by that measure the oil companies are middle of the road. I agree with Hoosier "So despite the fact that Exxon et al, explore, drill for oil, refine the oil, transport the oil all over the nation with the various grades mandated, they don't invent anything so they don't deserve the windfall profits" Daddy. She's a socialist.

That must be a regional thing, because using y'all to refer to individual people just sounds wrong to me. Y'all is used for groups, "all y'all" for large groups.

You might refer to a single person with y'all if he's representative of a larger group. E.g., the cable repair guy comes over to do an installation and screws up your wiring in the process; you say "y'all better get this fixed before American Idol comes on". The "y'all" references the cable company's collective responsibility.

Hil was terrific tonight. Loved her, wanted to be her, wanted to be one of her loyal gays in the background that knows all the steamy stuff but would never let it out of the bag.

But, please for God's sake, someone get her in an appropriate suit with appropriate colors. The queen that does her hair and makeup is a miracle worker. The queen that does her clothes should be disbarred-I know I have said that before but it needs to be said again. She looked like a big pink jelly bean in that hot pink monstrosity.

You have to admire her balls though. I never realized the tenancity or toughness that bitch really had but dam she is one tough bitch.

Hillary Clinton is the most pathetic politician of all time. Anyone who remotely takes her seriously has Alzheimers. Just think about the Monica vast right wing conspiracy bull shit. She was lying through her teeth or the most naive person on the planet. (She was lying through her teeth.)

I think she did real well, and so did O'Reilly. They both enjoy arguing and cackling and she is obviously enjoying her rising fortunes. She only avoided him to please MoveOn and Kos, and those folks deserted her long ago. She doesn't need them anymore, thanks to Rev. Wright.

Can't stand Hillary from way-back, but she did well tonight. Very well, actually. Obama would have caved in the face of such tough in-your-face questioning. And as to that, O'Reilly does interrupt his guests, but he wasn't at all disrespectful - she looked like she enjoyed it.

She's surely the tougher to beat for McCain if she were to bring her A game like she did here.

PatCa, was it me, or did she not cackle this time? She must've been coached repeatedly, because her laugh tonight was rather sweet.

Amba, I wouldn't go so far as to say she's got the most Presidential demeanour of the three; Obama is coolly elegant, McCain is forceful and commanding. These are Presidential rubrics on their own right, too.

However, for me at least (and if I'm reading other commentaries correctly, especially from the lady posters), she became a little less repellant tonight.

She answered tough questions, without a single solitary hesitation, or Obama-like stutter when things go off script.

He's interrupting her every few seconds and openly trashing her to her face.

You mean not buying her spin and asking her tough questions. And, by the way, she is dodging past his questions with spin. She's doing okay, but O'Reilly doesn't make people look bad, he makes them spin a lot. His viewers are smart enough to see through it. That's why it's called the No-Spin Zone. You don't watch the Factor, do you?

And I was struck by how refreshing it was to watch Hillary. None of the toxicity and defensiveness we've seen from Obama's racial issues.

None of the toxicity and defensiveness we've seen from Obama's racial issues.

Fen, BO'R himself touched on this in a round-a-bout way. He asked her something like, "Are you surprised that Fox News is giving you less a hard time than other news cable channels?".

She laughed, made a little quip about expecting nothing from the "fair and balanced" network, and he engagingly laughed with her about that.

And the amazing part is that it's so true. MSNBC's Dan Abrams spent 10 minutes on Hillary fumbling around with a coffee machine, I suppose to highlight how awkward she is, how unfeminine she is, how upper-class she is -- she doesn't even know how to make a pot of coffee. Christ. How childish.

I mean, that is an alternate universe situation, people, no?

If 8 years ago, a person from 2008 had told me about this attitude inversion, I'd have fallen off my sofa.

MSNBC's Dan Abrams spent 10 minutes on Hillary fumbling around with a coffee machine, I suppose to highlight how awkward she is, how unfeminine she is, how upper-class she is -- she doesn't even know how to make a pot of coffee.

No. It's about how her "woman of the people" meme is totally bogus. She cares about your gas prices, but she doesn't pump her own gas. She calls Obama an elitist arugula-eater, but can't even work a coffee machine. It's just the hypocrisy. I haven't seen the Abrams show tonight, but he attacks media process, so I imagine his critique was of the media buying into the Clinton spin that she is one of the common people, rather than an attack on Clinton personally.

JohnTaylor88 said..."She cares about your gas prices, but she doesn't pump her own gas. She calls Obama an elitist arugula-eater, but can't even work a coffee machine. It's just the hypocrisy."

Again, the problem isn't that Obama does things that Clinton doesn't do, it's that Obama claims to be offering something new while offering something very old, very borrowed, and totally blue. They could both clock in at the same time, and he'd still lose because he promised to be faster, sleeker, what have you. Enough with the dicy metaphors, the point is conveyed.

Those aren't metaphors; they're facts: Hillary has called Obama an out of touch elitist and her campaign has hit him on his Whole Foods arugula comment; and she has taken whiskey shots in public, talked about shooting ducks in Scranton, challenged Obama to debate on the back of a flat-bed truck, and called for a Gas Tax Holiday even though she doesn't pump her own gas. She stages phony events and uses phony rhetoric that make her look like a prole when everyone knows she's a multimillionaire, and that's what the media is reluctantly putting into focus. That she's so rich and living in such a bubble that she can't even work a gas station coffee machine only proves that when she calls Obama an Ivy league elitist, she's projecting. Oh, and if you listen carefully to the O'Reilly interview, Hillary inadvertently lets on that her father was richer than O'Reilly's father and if you track her little white lies thus far, how many places did she grow up? Scranton? Chicago? Arkansas? New York? Where is she from? O'Reilly did what O'Reill does very effectively, and you're talking to one of the folks who watches the Factor religiously.

It's just the hypocrisy. I haven't seen the Abrams show tonight, but he attacks media process, so I imagine his critique was of the media buying into the Clinton spin that she is one of the common people, rather than an attack on Clinton personally.

Well, in part that's what I meant by upper-class. BTW, when prodded, she acknowledged she was rich a few times during the O'Reilly interview, in the taxes segment, unlike Obama who insists he's "just folks". I liked that.

MSNBC go after Hillary in a way that is exceedingly mean-spirited.

I may not have agreed with that Melissa McEwan blogger about the cackling Hillary-Pez being sexist, but that's the kind of thing.

I think she's fair game, but MSNBC is hardly one to talk about being unprofessional and unbiased in their coverage as they constantly accuse Fox of being.

Taylor88 - She stages phony events and uses phony rhetoric that make her look like a prole when everyone knows she's a multimillionaire, and that's what the media is reluctantly putting into focus. That she's so rich and living in such a bubble that she can't (relate).

Sorry, that's idiotic. Hillary Clinton only came into real money late in life. An Elitist is bred, not in the public schools Hillary attended, but in the posh private locales Obama got in with his race and also with the patronage of his executive Indonesian Ruling Elite stepfather, then his bank exec grandmother when he was dumped off in Hawaii.Truth is that Hillary was in the lesser-paid elitist ranks due to her husbands power by her mid-30s, on many "Boards" and getting income in the 100K range while her husband was on dirt cheap Arkie swamp pay. She had long been a socialist, "I know what is best for common Americans" - fairly soon into Yale Law, but she didn't have her broad fat butt schmootched and told she was special and elite from early childhood, unlike both Barack and Michelle getting their brown butts kissed from childhood by elitists determined to elevate "high quality Negroes with brains" into their ranks in the Elites.

but she doesn't pump her own gas. She calls Obama an elitist arugula-eater, but can't even work a coffee machine.

A lot of women, including in the "bitter" working classes, make it a point of pride that they don't pump gas and they expect men to hold doors open for them. And the younger women that do not expect it still have Moms that are like that. And many women fumble with machinery - especially unfamiliar stuff - I dare say many men. Is this coffee machine hard-piped? Or must one pour water in? Where are the buttons? What level does the coffee grind need to go on the filter? Men fumble, too. It took me a few hours to figure out an expresso machine despite knowing nuclear physics and bomber jet bells and whistles very well...

Contrast Hillary with a guy that says after two US cities get nuclear-bombed his main response would be to "Support the 1st Responders, as President".

That shows the common sense and brains of a styrofoam cup.Contrast that to Hillary Clinton continuing to show depth and proper prioritization in her answers.

The pity is that Hillary is like a top BMW where every ding and glitch is exhaustively detailed by the media - while they tout the perfect new car they neglect to vet as super, without flaw - which on closer examination turns out to be a black painted Yugo.

***************Hillary gave a very good interview. This is a smart lady who has grown in the Presidential contest, and but for the Black Messiah phenomenon, would be our next President.She is amoral, and as Samantha Powers said in the classic UK sense, a monster. But Powers said that in context of other great, effective leaders who were also monsters in the same sense - FDR, Degaulle, Disraeli, Gladstone, JFK, LBJ, the brilliant, flawed but consequential Nixon, and Reagan - who was a famously amoral cocksman in his acting days, and was so detached he failed to recognize his son at HS graduation...

Whereas "non-amorals", Presidents of high rectitude, are folks like Wilson, Hoover, Carter and Dubya.

Garage: The fawning obamabots have done the impossible: they have actually made me sympathetic toward Ms. Clinton whom I still cannot abide but for whom I feel a bit of pity.

Warming up to the beast are ya? Haha. Interesting responses, I haven't seen the interview yet but I've read a few reactions from the Dkos Wing and I'm tickled she is still making heads explode. As long as they are seething and stomping their feet I figure she still has a chance.

Anecdotal stuff: my co-worker sold his birthright for broth...he walked to the Obama HQ, wanted tickets, told he had to vote first to get the tickets, so he walked across the street and voted, then, to get his tickets, he had to give the Obama people all his info, including who he voted for. Then he got his tickets. I think there's some local upheaval about this violation of campaign rules.

My other friend went to see Bill Clinton in Hope Mills, NC yesterday. Typically, he was over an hour late, spoke long and basked in the adulation.

I saw a local pollster on the cable news opposite Rasmussen, showing Hillary UP within margin of error over Obama. He polled after the current pastor Wright bruhahahahahaha. Rasmussen was a day ahead of it.

At work, the Obama-ites are getting brazen, which I read as desperate.

Also at work, I know of a few Operation Chaos operatives who will vote for Hillary on Tuesday.

Obama has bought radio time during the Rush Limbaugh show. It's a pretty effective ad, the one about not taking money from special interests. I have not heard a Hillary ad in reply.

So there it is: a mish-mash of observations from in/around my world of the Piedmont Triad.

I watched a bit of it and agree that she enjoyed it and did well in that sort of encounter. They're really two peas in a pod.

I generally don't like O'R's interrupting style of interview, but he's a commentator, not really an interviewer and it works in that context. OTOH, I've seen him with other guests and he can really be an excellent straight interviewer when he wants to be.

[Hillary] didn't have her broad fat butt schmootched and told she was special and elite from early childhood, unlike both Barack and Michelle getting their brown butts kissed from childhood by elitists determined to elevate "high quality Negroes with brains" into their ranks in the Elites.

The ordinary grammar school that Hillary attended in her neighborhood far outranks the special "magnet" school Michelle went to, in student aptitude and achievement, teacher quality, and student safety. Hillary's neighborhood high school, Maine South, performs at a par with Michelle's magnet school, Whitney Young.

The salient factors here are that both Bill and Barack grew up as brainy boys in broken homes, while Michelle's parents were respectable working class and Hillary's folks were solid middle class.

I don't normally watch O'Reilly but this sounds like some good stuff. I'll have to give it a look-see.

Yes, the Obama has done the unpossible: Made Hil(l)ary palatable by comparison to a lot of people. (I think a lot is exaggerated; regardless of what BHO promises, it's pretty clear he's just another politician. Aren't they all?)

Also, who else is gonna run for office but a rich person? Middle class people don't have the luxury. And who's gonna back a poor person? I mean, seriously. Poor people either can't manage their own lives because they're lazy (right) or disadvantaged (left).

former law student said..."The ordinary grammar school that Hillary attended in her neighborhood far outranks the special 'magnet' school Michelle went to, in student aptitude and achievement, teacher quality, and student safety. Hillary's neighborhood high school, Maine South, performs at a par with Michelle's magnet school, Whitney Young."

You phrased that in the present tense. You mean they do now, or you meant to say they did at the times Clinton and Obama attended them? If the former, why's that relevant? No disrespect to her, but it's been a few years since Hillary was in high school, and schools (like neighborhoods) change.